Offense or Defense?

[MTK]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

Colts over the Bears, Bears were the best defense that year and the Colts were one of the worst. The Panthers had a better defense than the 03 Patriots, with that crushing front four. When was the last time a team won the Superbowl without a strong passing attack?

Yeah but how was that Colts D during that playoff run?

Ravens won with a crap passing attack. The Giants beat the Pats without an overly strong passing game.

[SouperMeister]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Yeah but how was that Colts D during that playoff run?

Ravens won with a crap passing attack. The Giants beat the Pats without an overly strong passing game.

Ravens are really the only example I can think of - they had a terrible offense, but 7 -10 points was usually enough for them to win, especially in the playoffs. The Giants had weopons in their passing game - clearly Plaxico Burress was a matchup problem that freed up some of the younger guys to make plays - Steve Smith, Kevin Boss, and David Tyree all made impact plays in the passing game that day. The Pats and the Giants were strong on both sides of the ball that year. The Ravens are the only Super Bowl champion that was terrible on one side of the ball.

BTW, I'm in agreement that the Colts D was pretty damn strong on their playoff run (once Bob Sanders was healthy).

[djnemo65]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Yeah but how was that Colts D during that playoff run?

Ravens won with a crap passing attack. The Giants beat the Pats without an overly strong passing game.

Sanders helped the Colts stabilize the run defense in the playoffs sure, but you asked for a recent example of a great offense beating a great defense and the 2006 Superbowl counts as one. And btw, the Colts defense ranked 12th out of 12 teams in the playoffs that year, and were up on the 11th team by 40 yards per game. They set the bar pretty low during the season by being the worst run defense in history, but people seem to remember Bob Sanders coming back and things completely changing, when in fact they just went from worst ever to not worst ever.

And Eli Manning had a near 100 QB rating in the 07 playoffs. They passed very effectively during their run.

[Dirtbag59]

I believe that you need a good offense (not great mind you) to win the Super Bowl but at the same time the best teams win with defenses capable of shutting down high powered attacks. The thing though that really irks me is all the talk about needing an elite Wide Reciever to win games. Yes they help but they don't exactly have a track record of winning championships.

Against The Grain: Disproving wide receiver myths | FanNation

4. Great receivers win Super Bowls.

That might be true for quarterbacks, but not receivers. Amongst active players, the only two sure-fire Hall of Fame receivers -- Randy Moss and Terrell Owens -- have zero Super Bowl rings. A few borderline-to-probable Canton guys have won Super Bowls -- Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Hines Ward -- but their teams probably could have captured titles without them. The only virutal sure-thing Hall of Fame receiver to win a Super Bowl this decade was the Colts' Marvin Harrison in 2007.

I think part of the reason we're struggling with a top notch defense is due to the fact that we're trying to be a 60-40 passing team when all the while we can't really do anything well on offense. If we had a running game that could average 20 carries and a 4 ypc then we would be much better off. Running games are usually the best compliment to top notch defenses. However without one you need to find yourself a guy like Big Ben and doing that is easier said then done.

However getting back to Super Bowl winners, we've seen the majority of Super Bowl Champs win mainly with Defense over the past decade (I'm pretty sure if we look back further we'll find more teams who won with defense, but right now I believe the converstation is concerning winning in todays NFL). Among these teams are the Giants, Buc's, Patriots, Steelers, and Ravens who have 8 Super Bowl wins combined since 2000. The only teams to win with offense as the strongest unit were the Colts and Rams. Both of which had defenses that stepped up during the playoffs. Especially the Colts. Ironically the Patriots only Super Bowl lost came when the teams main strength was their offense and they lost to a team that relied primarily on their defense to win games.

Also as a foot note, the main reason the Rams got to the Super Bowl in 2000 was because their defense was able to hold the Buc's to 6 points. Granted the Buc's weren't a very good offensive team however very rarely will you win a game, let alone a conference championship, scoring 11 points. Ironically our top notch offense was knocked out of the playoffs in 1999/2000 by the Buc's who beat us mainly with defense.